Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 3.djvu/58

44 We have never heard of celts, or pottery-ware, or other articles having been found near any of these cromlechs; but the search for these matters can be said to have only just commenced, and we may yet discover them.

is well known that it was the practice of the northern chieftains of Ireland to entrust their defence rather to water than to stone walls, in other words, they ensconced themselves rather in islands than in castles; to the latter, indeed, they appear to have had a particular prejudice, witness the old, though, I fear I must add, apocryphal, story of Mac Mahon and De Courcy, in Hanmer's Chronicle of Ireland: "Courcy had builded many castles throughout Ulster," says Hanmer, "and especially in Fern, where Mac Mahon dwelt; this Mac Mahon with solemne protestations vowed to become a true and faithfull subject, &c. Whereupon Courcy gave him two castles with their demeanes to hold of him; within one moneth after this Mac Mahon brake downe the castles, and made them even with the ground. Sir John de Courcy sent unto him to know the cause; his answer was, that he promised not to hold stones of him, but the land, and that it was contrary to his nature to couch himselfe within cold stones, the woods being so nigh."

At a later period we find further and undoubted illustrations of this custom; thus, in the year 1507, one Thomas Phettiplace states in his answer to an enquiry from the lords of Queen Elizabeth's council, as to "what castles or forts O'Neil hath, and of what strength they be?" "For castles I think it be not unknown to yr honors he trusteth no point thereunto for his safety, as appeareth by the raising of the strongest castles of all his countreys, and that fortification that he only dependeth upon is in sartin ffreshwater loghe's in his country, which from the sea there come neither ship nor boat to approach them; it is thought that there, in ye said fortified inlands, lyeth all his plate, wch is much, and money, prisoners and gages; wch islands hath in wars tofore been attempted, and now of late again by the Lord Deputy there, Sir Harry